


The Signal Lantern

by WhenBachDropsTheBeat



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Athos Needs a Hug, But Really A Kiss, He's Working It Out, M/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:40:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28689561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenBachDropsTheBeat/pseuds/WhenBachDropsTheBeat
Summary: Words Are Hard For A Man Of Few Words
Relationships: Aramis | René d'Herblay/Athos | Comte de la Fère, Aramis | René d'Herblay/Porthos du Vallon
Comments: 24
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (here it is: the sad bit of fluff you noticed at the bottom of your empty tissue box.

“He’s been drinkin’.”

“I can see - and smell - that, Porthos,” Aramis said testily as a very drunken Athos finally attained the last step and blindly pushed him to the side as if he had been a bothersome drape or a misplaced piece of furniture.

“It’s been an adventurous night wi’ him,” Porthos sighed wearily as he and Aramis watched Athos woozily navigate his way across the sitting room of Aramis’ city apartment. “He started at least three brawls.”

Their impaired brother-in-arms was paused before the two low steps that led up to Aramis’ bed chamber as if flummoxed by the challenge of negotiating them, never mind the sixteen steps he had just navigated from the garden with Porthos’ steady hand at his back.

“I had to finish all three, by the way,” Porthos continued in a low voice. “Like puttin’ out a line o’ reckless brush fires. And then he got hi’self ejected bodily by the innkeeper at The Howlin’ Cat.”

“Drinking, fighting and banishment - a personal trifecta, then,” Aramis grumbled. “Why, in God’s name, did you bring him here? I know you must have seen the lantern, even as you chose to not respect its signal.”

“Not my idea! It was at his insistence!” Porthos hissed a defense on his own behalf.Then he softened, imploring, “ Look... He took a proper knock to the head in that last brawl. Cut his head up a bit. I tried to dissuade him from comin’ here; I tried to get him back to the garrison, but he was havin’ none of it. So, wi’ apologies to ya, dear brother, for disturbin’ yer evenin’ - I’m concerned the head wound may be hidin’ an injury that needs lookin’ after. I thought maybe you...?”

“Me?” Aramis snapped. “As if there are no other competent people with more medical knowledge - and certainly more patience right now - in the whole of Paris?”

Athos had already negotiated the small rise of stairs to the bedroom and was roughly pushing the arched door open. He paused again, as if disoriented by the sight of the large carved-wood four poster bed he had discovered.

“Please, Aramis,” Porthos pleaded. “I don’t like others t’ see him when he’s like this. An’ I know ya don’t either. I wish I coulda persuaded him back to his own place or dragged him back to the garrison wi’ me, but he’s actin’ like a madman tonight!”

“He’s been acting like a madman for weeks now,” Aramis grumbled as he followed the haphazard stumbling of his friend as he lurched forward into the bedroom as if it were his own. “He’s been particularly foul-tempered with me, so I find the fact that he insisted on being brought to my door a bit curious. And alarming.”

When the prized swordsman of King Louis XIII’s elite royal guard made a headlong pitch toward the bed, it was Porthos that sprinted up the bedroom steps to catch him. “C’mon, _mon cher,”_ he pleaded again with Aramis. “You know you hate seein’ him like this… an’ he’s hurt! I promise - if he makes a move t’ bite ya, I’ll punch him myself!”

Aramis sighed as if to press the point of his being inconvenienced, but within minutes he had Athos cleaned up and was finishing the bandaging of the older musketeer’s nasty head wound.

“He’s taken quite a knock to the head, I’ll grant you.” Aramis sighed as he secured the last of the bandage on the cut over Athos’ temple. It wasn’t a large cut, but the purpling bruise and growing lump beneath it indicated Athos was in for a horrendous headache for the next few days.

Aramis wiped the last of the blood from his hands at the wash basin, and helped Porthos gently maneuver the unconscious musketeer safely onto his side on the bed.

“We could probably set a wager between us whether the headache that will torture him when he wakes will be from his head by injury or from his liver by alcohol.” Aramis remarked.

“Alcohol. 20 sous. I win. Pay me later,” Porthos muttered, rubbing his face wearily. “Do ya mind if I take up my side of yer bed tonight? Chaperonin' him has left me with little energy to get m'self back out t' my own rooms.” He yawned and stretched and sent a sympathy-seeking pout at his friend who still seemed edgy about the intrusion into his evening and his home.“Or are ya expectin' yer lady that we scared off t' come back?”

Aramis regarded Porthos sourly for a moment as he was fussily re-rolling what remained of a supply of clean bandages. He returned scissors to the leather bag he kept for impromptu medical emergencies - like the one occupying his bed in a drunken stupor at the moment. With a sigh of resignation, he finally said “ Of course, _mon cher_. This wash basin has water in it - slightly used, if you don’t mind -and you know where the clean nightshirts are. When Madame DeCoeur arrives with breakfast tea and finds your laundry, I’ll let you deal with her rage.”

“Aahhh, ya know she loves me like a precious son,” Porthos chuckled, stripping off his doublet and shirt. “Throw me that wash rag, an’ I’ll be asleep an’ outta your lovely head of hair in no time.” He paused and ran his eyes over his companion appreciatively now that the drama had been dealt with for the night. With a waggish smile, he added in a deep husky voice, “That is, unless you wanna...”

Aramis looked down at the unconscious form of his fellow musketeer as he answered, “No.This invasion stunt of his has left me with other issues to attend to.“ Without elaborating further, he sent a sad smile to the big man standing across the bed from him. “Besides you look tired, my friend. You have earned some rest. I cannot say I am happy about all this excitement tonight, but I am grateful you were there to watch over him. Thank you.” He started to step down out of the bedroom and then added “Make sure he is kept on his side. You know... in case he gets…”

Porthos was already yawning again and waving Aramis out of the room. “I know, I know. Good night, my brother.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

The brief breath of a breeze on his face and the persistent patter of a gentle rain falling on stone casements nearby roused Athos to full consciousness. His regret was almost instant. A spark of pain flashed across his brow, and he became aware of a persistent, fiery headache.

This was no trifling hang-over.

His eyes watered, triggered by a second spark of pain. He kept them squeezed shut for several moments against the torturous pounding in his head. When the thundering seemed to retreat a bit, he dared to open them to survey his surroundings.

The breeze that he felt and the sound of rain he was hearing came from beyond an open portal across the room he was in. Hampered by his own hazy vision and the low light around him, he was able to understand he was seeing a small, blurry light, eerily suspended in the darkness just beyond the opening. It was hard to make much else of it.

Athos closed his eyes, resting them for a moment. When he opened them again, his vision was clearer and the head pain had dulled a bit.

The room around him was modest in size. That was the only thing that could be said was modest about it. The plaster walls seemed to reflect an amber hue in the candle and lantern light. On one wall hung a beautiful tapestry, a forest scene that had a proud white stag as its focus.

One corner, almost hidden in late night shadows, seemed to have been given over to a small religious shrine. A simple, polished wooden prie-dieu gleamed out of the darkness. There was a glint that suggested a rosary hanging over the shoulder of the front piece.

A shelf held a small precious collection of books. Books were an expensive indulgence. Any collection with more than two in their number could be said to be impressive for a regular citizen. This shelf held five volumes, one of which was a fine tooled-leather copy of a bible. A worn edition of the Geneva Bible, Athos noted, published in Amsterdam.

Unaccountably, his muddled mind forced a tender memory upon him: his mother’s ivory-pale hands, settled on her own precious copy of the Geneva book. She had treasured it, but his father had not; the de la Fere patriarch disapproved of its Calvinist and Puritan annotations and was vocal about his disdain and displeasure.

His father’s displeasure with the tome seemed to make his unhappy mother all the more protective of it. Athos brusquely dismissed the memory as it began to turn from bittersweet to bitter.

Looking to an opposing wall, he saw a rather austere, but well-ordered weaponry rack. It held a small collection of firearms. His eye was caught by a wood and glass case that appeared to have a lock. It housed an expensive set of modern dueling pistols - enameled and filigreed.

A pair of masterfully crafted swords were hung close by. Both had hilts sheathed in leather and ornate hand guards artfully cast with serpentine splendor that disguised their true strength and purpose.Athos’ appreciative gaze was held by the one that boasted an Italianate design of seemingly impossible engineering and extraordinary beauty.

His eyes settled upon more familiar sights: a regimental musket; another sword - pragmatic, but still ornate; a flashy but lethal rapier; and a buffed and polished leather pauldron of elaborate carvings around a proud stylized fleur-de-lis that carried tell-tale scarring over its surface.

It was a musketeer’s pauldron.

A beloved musketeer.

Athos frowned. He was... in Aramis’ apartments?

Perhaps this was all a flight of fancy. Was he imagining that he was now resting in Aramis’ rooms? He vaguely recalled that just such an invasion of the new living quarters of the garrison’s good-looking gregarious marksman had entered his own imagination when he was well on his way to a dangerous level of inebriation, a level that released him of his severe, buckled-down nature. It was a nature he was possessed of through generations of noble breeding and a life of privilege where duty and perfection were ranked much higher than shows of affection that might signal some flaw or weakness.

The image of his mother’s ivory hands, brushing over the soft leather cover of her bible, fingering its gold-leaf pages rose up again, unbidden.

Flaws and weakness. Is that what drove him here? What had he wanted from this charismatic brother-in-arms whose gift of open affection and camaraderie seemed to come so easily to him?

The man had even gotten back on his feet and driven himself hard to recoup his former self after the tragic events of Savoy just a year earlier. He often credited both Porthos and himself with that recovery, and it was true that Athos had worked hard to be protective of him and had worked often with him as the young man struggled his way back to full health. And sanity.

But regardless of the affection he felt for Aramis, Athos had always been careful to keep himself removed, unable to tell the man what it meant to have him back with them. He admired how their little trio had become the underpinnings of Aramis’ recovery but it had made him uncomfortably aware that their brotherhood was also the underpinnings of a recovery he had needed, too.

Before the horror of the massacre at Savoy,Athos had already realized that Aramis’ wild coltish character had reminded him of his brother Thomas, the brother who had been murdered by the hand of a woman that Athos unwittingly had brought into their family home under misguided notions of love.

When he and Porthos had thought Aramis had been lost at Savoy, they each had leaned heavily upon each other, grieving for their two very separate, very different sorrows over what Aramis had meant to them.

The younger man’s return from Savoy hadn’t alleviated that grief - at least, not Athos’. Aramis had seemed so damaged that all the while Athos worked side by side with Porthos to bring Aramis back to himself, Athos was struck daily with the reminder that Thomas was gone and the horror of losing a brother again was very real.

Porthos grew closer to Aramis as the young man recovered and opened his heart up again. But when the man reached toward Athos, he was able to hold to his pledge of brotherhood but struggled with the shows of affection that seemed to come to Porthos so easily.

Athos found himself withdrawing, retreating behind his veneer of nobility .

And drink.

His drinking certainly had made him far too vulnerable tonight. His needs and wants threatened the thin bonds of control he had over his secret sorrows and thinning the control over his shapeless, nameless sense of longing. He had denied himself for so long that when the simple nexus of affection and brotherhood had arisen in the form of one flashy, ebony-eyed handsome soldier, Athos began to feel discomfited.

His slow withdrawal had been happening over months, but he could pinpoint the genesis of _this_ riot of untamed thoughts and feelings: A evening spent making camp in the forests near Versailles. It had been just the three of them on the hillside that night. Athos was banking the last of the night fire when he happened to look up to see Porthos, shirtless and bronzed by firelight, pressing himself against Aramis, big hands clutching dark, silky hair and his mouth locked eagerly against themouth of his uncomplaining cooperative captive.

The moment had been brief. It had even ended with a playful bit of laughter and shoving as the two joined their brother fireside. Athos still remembered the flushed feeling in his face, his heart beating as if in his throat. He busied himself, readying his bedroll while he surreptitiously kept stealing glances at Aramis as he talked and laughed as if nothing out of the norm had happened.

The three of them had been together like that many times before, but that night Aramis seemed so extraordinarily beautiful in the firelight, his dark unruly hair tangled around his lean, sculpted face, his eyes turned night black and, it seemed to Athos, bewitching. If he was aware of the effect he was having on Athos, he gave no sign of it.

Athos thought he must be going mad to be so utterly assaulted with the sudden feelings of longing that one sweet kiss had ignited in him. He felt a strange envy toward Porthos; his easy manner, his unaffected chatter as he reached for his shirt and then his weapons belt, readying to take the first watch.

Athos had persuaded Porthos to relinquish night watch to him. He knew he was not going to be able to sleep that night. He would spend the hours to daybreak puzzling over the revelation he had had and arguing with himself about just precisely where in his battered soul he was going to lock that revelation away.

He began to remove himself, in person, if not in thought. He got a bit more distant with Aramis, a bit colder, a bit harsher. And he began to spend more of his free time in the taverns getting comfortably numb.

If the young soldier had noticed, he had not given any indication.

But Porthos had noticed.

Typical of Porthos, he had acted out his concern by actually spending more time with his blue-eyed friend. The maneuver Athos had seemingly worked on Aramis would never have played well with Porthos. He, too, was open with his love of their brotherhood, but the bond he had formed with Athos was older than that of Aramis, and the big man was the personification of loyalty in ways that transcended the ways which the nobles Athos grew up among claimed to be their art and their privilege.

It should have made him feel better, but in truth, Porthos seemed to be hovering. Athos' own tangle of discontentment and unrealized feelings were dissolving into a stew of self-doubt and self-hatred.

But now he was here! Driven by drink and his locked-down emotions, he had breached the walls of Aramis’ new living quarters! The man had been unusually quiet about this place. He did not brag about it when he had quietly acquired it; he made no mention to others - other than Porthos and himself and maybe Captain Treville - of its little secret garden with its secretive gated entry. There were no riotous invites to other friends and soldiers of the garrison.

  
He and Porthos had each acquired their own private living spaces a while ago. This place was the first that Aramis had secured for himself since his recovery from Savoy. He was uncharacteristically secretive about it, and only Porthos had ever visited.

When Athos took it into his head to arrive - uninvited and defiant of what Porthos told him was Aramis’ signal lantern - he told himself tonight’s bold imposition would feel as if he had successfully invaded a hidden fortress!

His feeling of achievement was brutally short-lived when he spun his gaze back over the room so quickly that nausea threatened. A single spike of pain erupted. He raised his hand to his head and was surprised to feel a bandage.

A head injury? When had that happened?

It was then his blurring eyes fell upon a figure, seated at a small writing desk nearby. He blinked again to clear his vision.

Dressed in a simple white shirt, buff-colored breeches, and a billowing fawn-colored wrapping coat, Aramis sat bare-footed, looking preoccupied. He held a dove-colored quill and was bent over paper, writing peacefully at his desk, unmindful of being watched.

Athos blinked again, struggling to focus his unreliable vision. He was startled when his heart began to hammer at the sight of his soldier brother. This was not a fever dream. He was really here - in Aramis’ rooms. The place where his drunken resolution had driven him. He had a regrettable memory of a night of prodigious drinking, of brawls in which he fought like a man possessed. 

He began to feel anxious. He was still denying himself the reason for his need to come here. Disquieted, he lay still, calming his churning stomach and studying the other man who still seemed unaware, for the moment, that he was being observed.

Caught in the glow of a candle, Aramis was a framed portrait of a man who was blessed with an exquisiteness comparable to the fairest of women and was surely counted among the handsomest of men - or even the imagined angels of countless master painters. Tall, lean and well-muscled, he had the grace to match his looks. His dark hair had been recently trimmed, but his unruly, mahogany-colored curls still coiled at the nape of his neck and curled defiantly over his brow. Thick black lashes hid his dark eyes as the man looked down at his work. Shadows accented a straight nose, fine well formed cheekbones, an elegantly shaped mouth and an enviable sculpted jaw line, defined by a vainly groomed, fashionable beard and mustache.

Athos was not unaware of his own good looks. He was often on the receiving end of many envious glances or flirtatious comments. So, too, was their mighty brother-in-arms, Porthos, a man who easily commanded a comely magnificence of his own.

The allure of Aramis, however, was something altogether different. And damned if the man wasn’t as aware of it as he could be.

Aramis’ beauty, brazen self-confidence and cock-sure assertiveness had its rewards; It also had its consequences.

For a man like Athos, schooled at an early age in the rigidity and formalities of nobility, the assurances of rules and norms had lent a sober sensibility to life, even if he had found those assurances were neither dependable nor satisfying to the soul. He was beginning to acknowledge there was a part of his soul that seemed to defy those rules and norms.

There was something about Aramis that seemed to suggest a restlessness of the soul that was similar to Athos’, and Athos had often wondered if that was a strong proponent of this attraction he felt to the man.

Aramis was a bundle of contradictions, a dangerous puzzle that existed outside of rules and norms, though. Athos had done enough pondering in the last month to have realized that part of Aramis frightened him as much as it exasperated him.

What would it feel like to be that spontaneous? That free with oneself? Making his way through life on instincts rather than rules?

_It would feel like a stolen kiss in a forest,_ his mind whispered. _It would feel like the end of loneliness._ If he had it, he would hold it in his heart like his mother had held that Geneva Bible - in defiance and quietly possessive.

His odd obsession _(because he could not call it anything less)_ with that kiss - and Aramis - had taken hold and like a faint ember, was stoked and fed each day since. Athos found the feelings burning in him tonight. He wanted to feel what Porthos had felt. He wanted to feel the simple acceptance and trust of their brotherhood in a way he had not allowed for himself.

Aramis was an enigma. Here, in these unfamiliar rooms, Athos felt like he was intruding, like he was in a part of Aramis’ life that was different from the man he thought he knew.

Aramis, open and free with his love and yet discreet and mysterious with his heart. This secretive place of his, tucked away from busy streets and prying eyes,was the perfect accommodation for Aramis.

The small, annoying flicker of light that Porthos had described as a “signal lantern” had caught Athos’ attention when he first awoke. Now it drew his eyes back to the open portal he had noticed earlier. The dark blur was now in focus. It was a balcony doorway, open to the night air and a gentle rainfall beyond it.

The code of the signal lantern was simple: If the lantern was hung and lit, Aramis was home but had other company. Do Not Disturb.

Tonight, the light of that lantern had chafed at Athos’ last nerve. Tonight, he had defied it. Yet, there it hung - still shining brightly. Athos dropped his eyes back down to the beautiful man framed in candle light, still oblivious to his attentions.

Ignoring another pulse of pain over his forehead, Athos cleared his throat and spoke up. “Why am I here?”

He saw Aramis look up, appearing startled for a moment.

“Is your question existential, rhetorical, or are you seeking an actual answer?” the man responded with his signature impudence.

Athos could feel the scowl on his own face deepen. His head hurt, and he had awoken in a room that was not his own. Even if he had engineered this mischief, he was in no mood for Aramis’ brand of word play right now.

“What has happened to me?” This time the question had the unmistakeable tone of Athos’ noble upbringing, a tone he immediately regretted when he saw the look on his fellow musketeer’s face.

“Again - Is your question existential, rhetorical, or are you seeking an actual answer?”

Aramis was not being playful. He seemed mildly irritated. As if used to the disapproving look that Athos gave him, and equally accustomed to ignoring it, he merely returned to his writing when his injured guest chose not to respond.

The older musketeer felt as if his headache was likely to sculpt a permanent grimace onto his otherwise handsome visage. _At least hang-overs had the gift of a certain impermanence; Aramis’ insolence is forever_ , he thought moodily.

With as little movement as possible, he returned to his survey of Aramis’ well-appointed parlor room. His eyes were drawn to the signal lantern again though, as if compelled.

_Damn the signal lantern._

It was suddenly too bright for Athos’ aching, tear-crusted eyes. He squinted and rubbed at his reddened eyelids and squirmed restlessly.

He groaned and and attempted to lift himself to a sitting position from the comfort of the chaise lounge he was lying on, struggling momentarily with a light blanket that had been tucked around him. He caught sight of Aramis watching him, hawk-like, showing a moment’s concern.

“You may have sustained a minor head injury,” the man finally spoke.

_Minor? God save me! What would a major head injury feel like?_ Athos gently probed his forehead, his fingers finding a dampish spot on the bandage at his left temple.

“Don’t push that bandage about, Athos -It took a bit of persistence to get that wrapped around your head properly. You fought it every inch of the way,” Aramis said with a matter-of-fact sigh as he turned back to his writing.

Athos was left to straighten himself into a full upright sitting position, pausing to fight another wave of dizziness.

“This headache feels like rather more than a minor head injury,” he grumbled.

“Well, it could be said to have been enhanced by whatever amount of wine you consumed tonight.” The man did not bother to look up from his work, nor did he sound sympathetic as he continued, “Your inebriation may have tempered the initial pain of the impact Porthos reported you had received, but now it adds to the pain of recovery as a consequence.”

_Consequence_. Athos huffed to himself, but a sudden pulse of pain seemed to punctuate Aramis’ unsubtle point. He was not inclined to pursue conversation about his own indiscretions tonight, as confusing as they were to him right now.

The quiet had returned to the room, interrupted only by the scratch of quill on paper indicating that his companion was no longer willing to engage in talk either.

Oddly disappointed and harried by a flurry of confusing thoughts, Athos closed his eyes. Struggling to sort himself out, he took a deep breath before opening his eyes again to take in the rest of the room.

He lay beside a tidy, swept-out fireplace that was idle in the warmth of late spring. It was capped with a modestly-carved stone mantelpiece that Athos did not recall had been part of the fireplace when Aramis had first moved in. It held a few precious items. An impressive free-standing depiction of the Crucifixion in gleaming silver stood on one end. At the other end, there was a clock - a modern German design, from the look of it -with a mechanism so quiet that one could hardly hear it over the patter of steady rainfall on the balcony stonework.

Athos was temporarily fixated by the Moorish blade fixed securely to the wall under a small gallery of paintings.

The sabre was an imposing piece of Moorish melee weaponry and unlike the other fine flawless pieces in Aramis’ collection, this blade held evidence of heavy use. The leather around its grip was worn thin with age and its heavy quillon (cross-guard) bore some signs of battering. The long curved blade still glistened and the worn leather still looked supple, evidence that someone was certainly still tending to it.

The distinctive signature of Damascus steel, the tell-tale “watered” patterns that marked its birth forged in foreign smelters and crucibles, was momentarily mesmerizing. He could tell its honed edge was still razor sharp, but it was also marred by several savage clefts in its surface that hinted at battles fought a long time ago against metal with strength equal to its own. It had to be much older than Aramis.

The gallery above the sabre featured several well-turned out landscape paintings, an heroic battle painting dominated by a figure on an impressive war horse, and a curiously small portrait of a beautiful woman with dark tresses and dark familiar eyes, her head draped in Spanish lace as delicate as her features.

Like the sabre that was fixed in a place of honor above the fireplace, the diminutive portrait suggested another mystery about Aramis and his past. Athos wondered it he would ever learn his story.

In the time that he and Porthos had known him, Aramis never offered much about his past. Athos could not fault him for that; he, himself, had never been forthcoming about his own past.

Athos found himself propped up against the soft backrest of the chaise lounge amidst an array of rich velvet and embroidered pillows. The light blanket that had covered him had been drawn up over him by his host, presumably.

The comforting, caring gesture suggested by the presence of the blanket only served to heighten his muddled sense of irritation with Aramis. Athos tossed the blanket to one side. It failed to make the dramatic clamor he had imagined the action would produce, and when Aramis still failed to look up from his careful script work, Athos’ irritation increased.

He posed another question, spiteful this time, if only to be more vexing to his host : “How is it that I find myself a prisoner on your sofa of seduction?”

Aramis looked up from his writing at that, quirking his head sharply at the remark. “Sofa of seduction? I had never heard that term applied to a chaise lounge, my friend. As for your imprisonment upon it - you have only yourself to blame for your couch-bound incarceration. You apparently do not remember flinging yourself onto it a little while ago, having escaped from the bedroom - ”

There was a quieter remark uttered by the handsome devil illuminated like a work of art in the candlelight: “- where, I might add, you were also NOT imprisoned by me or by my furniture.”

Athos ignored the expected show of impertinence. His head was throbbing. He continued to look around the room while he tried to gather his scattered thoughts. He still had a vague sense that he had come to this place for a reason.

That thought generated an anxiousness in him that was akin to fear.


	2. Chapter 2

Athos abruptly turned his attention to the signal lantern again and deliberately returned to a spitefulness that would serve well enough to drive other thoughts away.

“That damned signal lantern is still lit,” Athos snapped. “Is that so all those who may seek you out this night - even at this late hour - will know you are already entertained? Or perhaps now that I am here, you are signaling that I am your evening’s conquest?”

“Certainly not. The lantern has been shining brightly since well before your arrival. Apparently it failed to do its job, for here you are!” Aramis replied a bit tensely without looking up from the pages in front of him. “If, by use of the term ‘conquest’, you are referring to my actual guest this evening, she fled out through front door as soon as you and Porthos came stumbling through the garden wicket gate - a gate that had been locked, as I recall. _Locked_ gates, by the way, are also well-known signals.” 

Inking his quill, Aramis mumbled with a hint of his growing impatience, “I must remind myself to get my gate key away from the Big Man. He overuses his love and privileges with me.”

“Porthos brought me here,” Athos felt the necessity to insist.

“Right you are! And wrong you are - Porthos did bring you here, but he has protested it was not his choice. In either case, Porthos is absolved of all guilt in the matter. I could hear him debating with you all the way up the staircase. He seemed firmly _against_ your argument in favor of home invasion.”

_My argument? Home invasion? Signal lantern be damned._ Athos watched, his vision still swimming unpredictably, as Aramis returned again to his writing task. The hiss and scratch of the Aramis’ quill on vellum was like a fly at his ear, goading him.

“Am I bothering you at your late night task?”

The stylus was lifted from the page at that, hovering. Athos expected some other peevish rejoinder was imminent, but the man seemed to be struggling for a response. Would it be a clever quip? Would it be an angry riposte? Would it be the actual truth?

Aramis did not look up. He merely laid aside his quill and leaned back in his chair, eyes fixed on the neatly crafted document in front of him. “No, Athos, you are not.” Then he added cryptically: “Would that you could have arrived earlier when the ‘bother’ would have been more useful, I would have been well rid of both my former guest and this task.” His response was soft, nearly inaudible, but the tone seemed to indicate he was troubled.

He suddenly tapped the document in front of him and added sullenly. “Poetry is such a useful tool. When it is this blatantly facile, it doesn’t even need to have a connection to the heart.”

Athos heard the hint of bitterness. He frowned as he watched the man push the paper aside.

“May I read it?”

At that, Aramis did look at him. Athos saw a glimpse of surprise before the handsome face settled into a mask of feigned detachment. The soldier poet shrugged and moved his hand away from the single sheet of paper, allowing Athos to lean forward and pick it up.

“It has all the romance one might expect,” Athos said after reading it.

“Good.” Aramis’ answer was surprisingly snappish. “Then my task is done.”

“And yet, I hear none of you - your heart, your voice - in it.”

Athos’ observation prompted Aramis to snatch the sheet of paper from him. “Good,” the younger man repeated tersely. “Then, as I said, my task is done.”

“I don’t understand.” Athos waved a hand over a separate stack of papers. “Are these all mere bundles of regret and empty meaning from you? Exercises in hiding who you are and what you feel?”

He stopped himself abruptly, struck suddenly by the irony of the question; he should be asking that of himself.

It was Aramis’ turn to frown. He brushed Athos’ hand away, unaware of his guest’s sudden moment of distress. “No. Some - like this one - “ He crushed the paper in his hand and threw it into the cold, empty fireplace. “- are an actual task. Something I am forcing myself to do.”

He looked perturbed, but Athos did not get the sense that he was the cause. Perhaps it had to do with the guest that he and Porthos had forced to flee.

Aramis was not going to share more details about his distress. He had already moved on, waving a hand over the papers stacked in neat piles on the desk, and some at his feet.“That bundle, nearest to you, is part of a work-in-progress. Poems of my own for publication - hopefully soon. That is, if the steady traffic of surprise visitors to this place ever lets up.” He cast an accusatory look at Athos. ”Do you imagine I can afford this place on a soldier’s pay?”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” Athos answered with a practiced blandness.

But he had thought about it. Often. He had thought about it with curiosity. He had thought about it with concern. Sometimes, he had even thought about it with amusement as he imagined the many ways Aramis might have afforded this place.

Aramis was carefully re-arranging the precious sheets of paper and securing them with small silver paperweights shaped like shapely, sinuous mermaids, of all things! Athos watched him, wondering at this new demeanor; the man looked dispirited, weary. He was talking, but Athos was paying little heed to his words, seemingly mesmerized by the way he picked up each little naked figurine and rolled it reverently in his hand before settling each of them atop neat stacks of papers.

“... is only a small book to be published. I... I have a patroness.” He sounded oddly self-conscious and swiftly went on to indicate the other projects on his desk. “I am being paid well for a number of poems, essays… some letters… that require translation, Italian to French. I also do some scribe work - Legal documents, personal correspondence…” His voice trailed off.

“A fountain of gossip and secrets, I imagine.” Athos observed

“A useful tool of an itinerant spy.” The bitter tone had returned.

Athos realized Aramis had been talking too quickly; he seemed nervous, defensive. Unhappy. Maybe he and the younger musketeer had more in common than Athos realized.

Even at his most enigmatic, though, Aramis was still a fascination to Athos. He marveled at Aramis’ unerring ability to go after the things he desired.

He had had that ability once. Desires. Persistence. He had lost control of that strength. He was aching to reclaim it again.

“Can you tell me, brother - what do you know of desire?”

Whatever the intent he had meant in his question, Athos could tell it had not been well received by Aramis. He was alarmed and confused by the look Aramis gave him. Perhaps he had been misunderstood, miscommunicated his scattered thoughts. There was a quick eruption of vulnerability in the deceptively detached demeanor Aramis seemed to have armored himself in this evening.

When he realized it was a flash of hurt and distrust, he immediately regretted the way he had worded his question. Head over heart was a great philosophy when crossing swords, but not as useful when crossing barriers to understanding one’s own personal struggles.

His head hurt - actual pain, different from the heartache that was haunting him. He immediately began rebuking himself in his misery. What was he here for? What did he expect from this encounter? He had spent the last several weeks willing Aramis into the distance to avoid all the feelings this man caused in him. Maybe he could just resolve these feelings without facing them like this - here - in his clumsy, blind manner. His noble sensibilities had been screaming at him that he should never open his heart enough to allow himself to wonder what true affection and acceptance would feel like.

Now, he just seemed to have worsened his own plight and wounded the very person he needed to reach out to. This was not how he wanted this conversation with Aramis to go.

Before Athos could sort the flood of his thoughts and emotions, Aramis had recovered his cautious, dispassionate air. “Do you mean for this to be some intellectual discourse between us on the matter of desire, Athos, or is this some elaborate tease designed to mock me?”

His directness was chilling, but Athos was grateful for it. It gave him enough courage to keep stumbling forward.

“No discourse. No Tease. I am uncertain of how to ask you…” Athos said gravely.

Frustrated by his inability to frame his feelings for Aramis, he waved a hand toward the closed door of the bedroom and said, “Perhaps I can find a way to my point by telling you that I am in awe of Porthos. He holds a place in your bed with such easy familiarity…”

Aramis bristled, still defensive. “What does _that_ mean, Athos? How does that matter? If you are fishing about for information on whether others have shared that bed, then yes! There are others…” He managed to make his answer sound matter-of-fact, but he was still very defensive.

Yet, without meeting Athos’ eyes, he quietly added, “Surely you know Porthos holds a space in my heart.”

“I do,” Athos responded solemnly. _And I want you to show me there is space for me too in that heart_ , he thought, but aloud he said, “And it does matter.”

Aramis again mistook his words for a reproach. He picked up his quill and resumed his writing again, in silence.

Athos pinched his eyes shut. The pain in his head was unrelenting. It was certainly not the usual result of an evening spent in the company of wine bottles alone. It certainly had to be the result of having his head cracked by some misadventure of his own choosing this evening.

Turning his eyes back to the candle-lit vision of his handsome brother-in-arms, Aramis, he felt the ill-defined anxiety rise again. The man was turned away from him, as if he didn’t even want to face his friend.

Athos was still feeling inexplicably driven to capture the man’s attention, to aggravate and irritate, as if that was the only way he had to reveal what was hidden in his heart.

“Your signal lantern is infamous!” Athos huffed with intention to provoke. “ ‘All comers, be warned away! Aramis the Lover is hard at play!’ ”

Athos saw Aramis throw him a quick sidelong glance that was more shock than the sour response Athos had expected he would elicit. The man would not rise to the bait that Athos seemed intent on casting toward him, though. Instead, he retuned to his careful, fluid scripting.

If not an insult, then, perhaps an inquiry to disturb this frustrating “peace”?

“Now what are you writing?” Athos asked pointedly.

“Well, I suppose I have a poem to rewrite, since the other found no favor with my harshest critic.” The answer was simple and abrupt, as if the man were speaking to an unruly child.

When Athos barked a single mirthless laugh, Aramis sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. Apparently, Athos thought smugly, there are some trials even a poet’s heart cannot rise above.

“This has been an entire evening of false starts and frustrated endings.” Aramis’ complaint was murmured _sotto voce_ as he laid aside his quill. With forced calmness, he rubbed at the ink stains on his fingers with the damp cloth he had retrieved from a corner of the desk.

“If you must know, my overly-inquisitive friend,” Aramis finally addressed Athos directly, “This is work I have been doing for a ...” Here he paused, looking for a proper descriptor.“ ... a _patron_ of mine. If you must know, it’s a translation. Of poetry. Italian to French. You could say my work here helps to keep the signal lantern burning - and by association, your endless _fucking_ fascination with it.” 

Athos popped a bright, sarcastic smile of satisfaction onto his face. He had managed to irritate the Prince of Hearts, right here in his own fiefdom!It was not the signal lantern that held his ‘endless fucking fascination’, Athos knew, but the fucking heart that kept that fucking lantern lit - warning all away.

_Do not disturb._

But he wanted to disturb. He wanted Aramis’ attention. He wanted...

He stopped himself. He was so close to being able to say it aloud. The feeling was taking shape. It was still frightening.

Aramis was speaking, so he kept his thoughts to himself as he watched and listened. His companion was sweeping one hand in an angry gesture that still managed to look graceful while indicating the comfortable, well-appointed room around them as he spoke, “My translation and reproduction work, my scribe work, my own modest attempts at poetry - they are a part of how I am able to afford some small luxuries. These modest rooms; my book collection; the housekeeping services of the widow Madame deCoeur...”

He turned his dark eyes on Athos. “ And yes, even that ‘seduction couch’ about which you seem to have taken so much delight in mocking me.”

Athos huffed noisily, dismissing his friend’s remark to concentrate on an attempt to rise off of the cursed chaise lounge.

That drew a shocked gasp from Aramis. “Athos, stop! You have been hurt, man! Are you even able to recall how you ended up here in my rooms?” He was already half-risen from his own chair, looking concerned and ready to keep Athos where he would be safe, his irritations with his beloved friend swiftly lost.

Athos settled back into place when he saw the mix of anxiety and upset on Aramis’ face. He had only vague recollections of how he had ended up here. He had had a purpose; Some matter he wished to resolve with Aramis. He was sure of that much, but now that he was here, that purpose felt like a risk he hadn’t prepared himself for.

“You really don’t remember, do you? _Mon Dieu_ , you are a stubborn fool!” Aramis was pressing the heels of his palms to his temples, signaling his sheer exasperation with his brother-in-arms. “All right! I will tell you what I know of your misadventures tonight. According to Porthos, you had engaged yourself in some epic drinking and a number of barroom brawls. Three, to be precise!” He was clearly unhappy as he sat heavily back down on his chair. “Porthos had to extract you from both your last bottle and your last battle, I might add. It was at _your_ insistence that you both are here. In spite of the signal lantern’s obvious warning, Porthos sa - ”

_Damn the Signal Lantern!_

“Porthos, Porthos, Porthos,” Athos made a churlish interruption. Aramis was trending toward one of his classic pious lectures, he told himself. Surely, it would only be a matter of minutes before the man broke out the rosaries and holy water and begin recounting Athos’ many sins. The older musketeer groaned as he reached up again to feel the swath of bandages wrapped over his injured head and abruptly changed the subject. “Speaking of brother Porthos, is that low irritating growl I keep hearing from him or are you harboring a bear in your bedroom?”

Aramis, forced to pause mid-lecture, just gaped at him for a long moment. Finally, he swung his gaze over one shoulder to the arched doorway that stood at the top of a two-step rise. The door stood slightly ajar.

In the silence that fell again between the two friends, Athos became aware of a muffled, familiar rumble.

“You damn well know, Athos - Porthos remains as he was, in my bedroom,” answered Aramis curtly. “In my bed, where _both_ of you had been comfortably established soon after I had dressed your wound. That is, until a little while ago, when you just decided you had had enough of his snoring and stumbled your way out here. I imagine his bear-like growling did little to make your headache feel better.”

He had waved his hand over his own left temple to indicate the site of Athos’ injury - as if the persistent throb wasn’t constantly reminding Athos of its precise location.

Aramis spun gracefully out of his chair to go to the bedroom door to gently close it against the steady rise and fall of Porthos’ rumbling. “He makes himself at home,” he said quietly. When he seated himself again, he had a small wistful smile, and his demeanor had softened.

Athos recognized the fondness for Porthos in Aramis’ voice and felt a return of envy toward his blissfully sleeping brother-in-arms in the other room. How familiar it felt as he lay here in this comfortable room, in the company of the very man who unknowingly provoked the envy and longing that haunted him tonight.

He was aware now that the anger and anxiety he had felt for these past several weeks was a result of feelings of the loneliness and longing that had been roughly torn open by the sight of one quick moment of easy affection between two men he had come to love and cherish more deeply than he had ever imagined possible.

He allowed himself the simple, shallow affections of their brotherhood, but from the moment he had witnessed that secret kiss in the forest, he knew he wanted something more. Was it simply the repressed need to be able to tell Aramis of these revealed feelings, coupled with the fear that he might risk losing someone else he loved again that kept him in this frustrated state?

It had been useless to watch Aramis or to study him like a battlefield to be conquered. Nothing in the way he moved or the way he spoke or the way he lived was going to yield insights for a problem that was for Athos alone to resolve.

Aramis, he realized, was not the thing that had to be conquered.

A sudden wave of longing for some proof of Aramis’ oft-repeated pledges of love and loyalty broke over him. All for one? One for all? Porthos never seemed bothered by feelings like this. Did he know the secret of banishing the torment of longing after another?

He dared not ask such a direct question of Aramis from his own heart. The constraints of his upbringing and the trauma of his losses simply wouldn’t allow such bold and reckless behavior. Instead, for the moment, he made another wrong-footed choice to persist in provoking the object of his fascination with inept personal questions, “Does Porthos mind your many affairs? The sharing of your affections, I mean. Does he care that you --- ?”

Aramis cut him off with an immediate blunt response. “That I - what? Porthos knows as much of my heart as he wishes to know, Athos. He, at least, knows and trusts that my heart is always open for him. He never questions what is hidden from him.”

“I would,” Athos rapidly countered, reacting to the sudden challenge he sensed in Aramis’ words without his customary caution. ”I would question everything you might attempt hide from me if… if your heart were also mine _.”_

He blinked, stopped himself. Had he said that aloud?

The question was answered when he realized Aramis was slowly turning to look at him. His stomach twisted. He was aghast that he had been so peculiarly bold! The sudden burst of speed in the beating of his heart made him breathless. This night of uncontrolled feelings was creating a nightmare of unmitigated disasters.

He felt as if he had just initiated a laughable contest of will and skill with an opponent who was armed with weapons made of magic and gifted with victory by gods in whose eyes that opponent was surely favored.

The return of leaden silence in the room now felt oppressive. At the open doors to the balcony overlooking the garden, the breeze that had ushered in the rainfall gently stirred the curtains. Athos was painfully aware of the ticking of the clock on the mantel, the patter of rain on the balcony, the hiss of the breezes pushing insistently through the curtains.

High in the middle of the balcony doorway, the signal lantern swayed and flickered with each breath of a new breeze.

Athos frowned. His injury headache and wine hang-over had reached a state of balance; one would not aggravate nor alleviate the other. He had hope that his muddled memories would soon sort themselves out.

His muddled emotions, however, needed sorting out tonight. Right now. With the man who was breaking his heart with his silence.

How had he allowed himself to foolishly voice his demand that he should know the hidden heart of Aramis?

The shadows the lantern cast danced on the floor where Aramis now fixed his eyes. The handsome rogue was as still as if he had been turned to stone.

“I have finally fallen to your real seduction, you know.” Athos’ voice was a painful whisper. “I fell - as if taking a fatal wound in battle - that evening in the forest of Versailles. When Porthos kissed you. I saw you differently that night, and I thought I had gone quite mad. The light and laughter and camaraderie that we three always took for granted was somehow transformed. You became a different being to me.”

That brought Aramis’ dark eyes back to his own; he looked confused and still a bit distrustful.

“Aramis - the man who uses his words, his voice and his beauty as skillfully as his weapons of war. Forgive me, I did not know what to do with all these unruly feelings that escaped my control.”

“I confess, brother - “ Aramis faltered uncharacteristically. He began again, “I have been uneasy around you, Athos. I’ve been afraid, unsure. Tonight, from the moment you forced Porthos to breach my garden gate for you, I feared you were here with intent to break open some uncertain nature in me.”

“I confess, brother,” Athos echoed solemnly. “We both may have reason to be uneasy. I may be more intent on breaking open an uncertain nature within myself tonight.”

He gingerly pushed himself to an upright position again, swaying uncertainly for a moment when his addled brain sought some stable arrangement of his bruised brain and aching body.

A memory returned to him, as clear and sharp as a shard of glass: the memory of that kiss in the forest and how it felt to have his sense of longing ignited.

He knew what to say, finally.

“I want to tell you that I was at your garden gate much earlier tonight. Before I got into all those brawls, Before I pressured my beloved - _our_ beloved - brother Porthos into bringing me here. I had something I wanted to say to you then, and I thought I had the courage to do it. I had been turning it over in my mind in every free moment I’ve had since Versailles, yet I was still unsure of what I might say. Then I saw you - from the garden gate below - I watched you light your signal lantern, and I saw someone draw up behind you. She touched you, and so I turned away. I had just wanted to tell you...”

He stopped, wondering if he had the courage to finish what he had started this night. “I had just wanted to say...” He stopped again and slowly, carefully, shook his head with a wince. “I’m sorry. I was already drunk by then. I don’t know what overtook my sensibilities.”

“These overrun sensibilities of yours - are they the reason my mere presence around you has seemed like poison these past weeks? Are they why you have seemed to accost my every word and action?”

Athos hesitated and then nodded. Was he acknowledging or capitulating to his conflicted heart? The bravado that wine had given him earlier this evening was now gone. He was beginning to lose courage for this single, important matter. How he would gladly exchange the fire of a battlefield or the exhilaration of a sword fight over this pain!

Revelations of the heart had so many dangers, so much cost.

“I feared you had begun hating me, Athos. That is what I feared you wanted to say to me tonight.”

Aramis’ faint statement startled him out of his thoughts. A quick look confirmed the apprehension and hurt he thought he detected in his companion’s voice. Aramis was pale and wide-eyed.

Athos was beginning to think he should say nothing more. He had humiliated himself enough tonight. Now, however, another cost of his unfathomable emotions was revealed: He had inflicted hurt and confusion on Aramis, too.

The instinct to leave his heart locked and safe was overwhelming him.

Athos felt the sudden sting of hot tears in the corner of his eyes. Certain they were the result of the fiery pain he felt at his left temple, he cautiously pressed his hands to his eyes. He was startled by a firm grip pulling them down and away from his face.

He was looking directly into Aramis’ eyes. The Adonis was kneeling before him - close, like an erupting flame moving toward dried firewood. It was the oddest look he had ever seen in those dark eyes, naked and vulnerable and yet still lit with exposed desire.

He wondered at the man’s ability to open himself up like this.

In that same moment, he felt the exhilarating press of Aramis’ mouth against his. The erupting flame claimed the dried firewood. Athos’ head spun with sensations. The taste, the smell, the feel of Aramis had been unimaginable once. Now, everything was indescribable.

Athos immediately felt the triumph over the torturous sense of longing. It was now banished, and he felt the contentment of a wish fulfilled. When he broke away and found himself looking again into those great, dark eyes, he was speechless.

It was Aramis’ soft, velvety voice that broke the silence first. “What must I tell you tomorrow? When you wake from the fever of this moment and shyly ask whether tonight was a dream or whether it was real, must I deny this?”

“You know I will not ask you, brother - shyly or boldly. I still have so much to puzzle out, but your open heart helps me. So, I beg of you - only whisper to me every now and again that this was all a wonderful dream.”

He cupped his hands around Aramis’ face and tenderly stroked flushed lips with his thumbs. “I’ve lost so many dreams in my life, Aramis, that it had seemed like I would have none to keep me company any more. Until I began to long for what I saw Porthos has with you. I’d like to keep this one dream for myself while I sort my heart out, _mon cher_.”

With that said, Athos leaned forward to reconnect the kiss and connect his heart.

~~~*~~~ The End ~~~*~~~

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[PODFIC] The Signal Lantern, by WhenBachDropsThe Beat](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28862361) by [Thimblerig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig)




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